Shouldn’t education be student-centric then, with one single aim – keep students happy and deliver on better learning outcomes? As Douglas Green suggested yesterday at weekly #edchat discussion: “In business, the customer is the number one you need to satisfy. I think it’s good to think this way regarding the students.”
This statement caught the attention of many, participating in weekly #edchat. Julie Szaj asked: “Do you think education should take on the business model? Would that make sense for education?”
What is education for?
We often forget that education is about preparing kids for the future. Education is (or at least should be) about helping kids find their natural talents, strengths and weaknesses, and guiding them to master the skills, which they will need in life.
Shouldn’t school be that place where kids can fail fast and learn skills that they will need when applying for a job? Wouldn’t it make sense to look at the business world and learn from best business practices there?
What education can learn from business:
1. Collaboration: work in groups, provide constructive feedback for colleagues (classmates), listen, debate, and express your opinion.
2. Independent work: show initiative, plan and execute your project, manage your time and set up goals.
3. Research skills: research, find quality content and use that information to create a project.
4. Data analysis: work with data and make insights.
What else would you add to this list?
Vice versa. What business can learn from education?
Perhaps all these skills should be “taught” at university or college but not at high school. On other hand, kids are smart these days, sometimes even smarter than ourselves (I am still trying to figure out Snapchat, which is popular among teenagers..) If kids are so clever, shouldn’t we start the discussion of skills to be learned at school at early age?
But what about the business world? What can businesses learn from school environment? Share your thoughts in the comments.
In the meantime, I appreciate your time in reading this post and I invite you to join us on Twitter.
P.S. Teachers use Fishtree to plan lessons, find standard-aligned teaching resources, create assessments and see students performance, all in one place! If you’re a teacher, use Fishtree to prepare for your class and understand how well each student is learning. What’s more, it’s safe, secure, collaborative and easy! Try the next generation learning platform or contact us for a demo.
Image credits: Vancouver Film School / CC BY 2.0
